Category: Ray Allen

Ray Allen of the Miami Heat makes a game-tying 3-pointer over Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs during Game Six of the 2013 NBA Finals at AmericanAirlines Arena on June 18, 2013. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

MIAMI – Heat coach Erik Spoelstra not only walks by the ceiling-to-floor photo outside the Heat’s locker room of Ray Allen’s shot in Game 6 of the 2013 Final every day, but …

“I touch that photo every day,” he said. “Grateful for Ray and his obsessive-compulsive work ethic to work on that shot thousands and thousands of times when everybody else would think that was too ridiculous a circumstance to actually try to practice something like that.”

The shot, a corner 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds remaining, tied the game. The Heat won in overtime and then took Game 7 to capture their second consecutive title.

Allen was recognized for his 18-year career, which ended with two seasons in Miami, by being among the inductees for the Basketball Hall of Fame Saturday. Among those he joins in the 2018 class: Former NBA stars Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Grant Hill and Maurice Cheeks; Dino Radja, one of FIBA’s 50 greatest players and a two-time EuroLeague champion; longtime college basketball coach Lefty Driesell and women’s basketball standouts Katie Smith and Tina Thompson in the 2018 class.

Allen was in New York promoting his new book when he learned he would be inducted.

“I took a step back,” he told ESPN. “It was almost like one of those conversations or phone calls that it knocks the wind out of you a little bit, because you can’t believe what it being said. My phone came up and when I looked at it, underneath, it said, ‘Hall of Fame,’ and I was like, ‘The Hall of Fame is calling me.’

“You know, we’ve been humble to play this game and we’ve been certainly privileged. But to get a phone call from the Hall of Fame to say you’ve been inducted, it’s something that dreams are made of. We realized that if we didn’t play this game to make money, we’d play it because we loved it, we enjoyed the camaraderie.”

Allen is the fourth player to spend time with the Heat to make the Hall of Fame, joining Alonzo Mourning, Shaquille O’Neal and Gary Payton. He is the first player that Spoelstra has had as a head coach to be inducted. Heat president Pat Riley also is in the Hall of Fame.

“He’s a first ballot hall of famer for his whole career, two-time champion,” Spoelstra said. “He could be Hall of Fame off the court as well for all the work he’s done for his foundations and all the cities he’s been in and those foundations are still up and running not only here and still in Boston he still has a presence in all the cities he’s played.”

Allen signed with the Heat as a free agent in 2012 and helped the team win the 2013 title thanks to the biggest shot of his career.

“That will go down as one of the most iconic shots in NBA history,” Spoelstra said. “And it was just an absolute blessing to be part of that moment. To be part of that team and I’m grateful I had an opportunity to coach a Hall of Fame player and person as Ray.”

Allen, who now makes his home in Miami, also won a title with the Celtics in 2008. He was a 10-time All-Star, remains the NBA career leader in 3-point field goals with 2,973 and is sixth on the all-time free throw percentage list at .894.

The fifth overall pick of the 1996 draft by Minnesota out of Connecticut, Allen was traded to the Bucks on draft night. He then spent 6.5 years with Milwaukee, 4.5 years in Seattle and five years in Boston.

Allen averaged 18.9 points in his career while shooting 45.2 percent, 40 percent on threes. In two years with the Heat he averaged 10.3 points.

At Connecticut, Allen was a unanimous first-team All-American in 1996. He was named the USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year in 1995 and won an Olympic gold medal in 2000.

Ray Allen of the Miami Heat makes a game-tying three-pointer over Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs during Game Six of the 2013 NBA Finals at AmericanAirlines Arena on June 18, 2013 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES – When Ray Allen joined the Miami Heat his best years were behind him. But not his best shot.

Allen, who has the most dramatic shot in Heat history, was named one 13 finalists for the Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2018 on Saturday.

Allen played 18 seasons, his final two with the Heat. He signed as a free agent in 2012 and helped the team win the 2013 title thanks to the biggest shot of his career. With the Heat seconds away from losing the Finals to the San Antonio Spurs, Allen made a corner 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds remaining in Game 6. The shot tied the game, the Heat won in overtime and then took Game 7 to capture their second consecutive title.

Allen, who now makes his home in Miami, also won a title with the Celtics in 2008. He was a 10-time All-Star, remains the NBA career leader in 3-point field goals with 2,973 and is sixth on the all-time free throw list percentage list at .894.

The fifth overall pick of the 1996 draft by Minnesota out of Connecticut, Allen was traded to the Bucks on draft night. He then spent 6.5 years with Milwaukee, 4.5 years in Seattle and five years in Boston.

Allen averaged 18.9 points in his career while shooting 45.2 percent, 40 percent on threes. In two years with the Heat he averaged 10.3 points.

At Connecticut, Allen was a unanimous first-team All-American in 1996. He was named the USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year in 1995 and won an Olympic gold medal in 2000.

“You play this game to get the best out of yourself. That’s what I felt. My 13 years in Miami I leave satisfied what I accomplished, what my team accomplished, what my teammates accomplished. So, if you worked hard to do that, if you worked too hard to do that I’m fine with it because we had to deal with success.”

Dwyane Wade has played for two teams the last two years after spending his first 13 seasons in Miami.. (Allen Eyestone / The Palm Beach Post)

Wade said Allen was treated differently when he played for coach Doc Rivers in Boston.

“Miami is Miami. They do it the way Miami does it,” he said. “Obviously, Ray came from Boston and Doc did things a little differently for him and (Kevin Garnett) and those guys. Miami is done the way that it’s done. At the end of the day no matter what happened those years we went to four Finals in a row and we won two championships, one with Ray. That’s just a part of coaching in Miami.”

Wade, 35, teamed with LeBron James and Chris Bosh to win two championships in Miami. Allen was part of the second. Two summers ago, after 13 years with the Heat, Wade signed with Chicago. Wade and the Bulls reached a deal on a buyout after one season and Wade reunited with James in Cleveland this season, his third team in three years.

“It’s been a little difficult at times, probably just learning the systems,” Wade said. “Different roles from obviously Miami, being a number-one option on a lot of nights, number two when Chris was playing sometimes. In Chicago varying. And here, coming off the bench. So a lot of different things. But many different challenges in the last few years. But, overall, it’s just a part of the body of work of my career, so it’s been good.”

Wade was asked how different these last few years have been from what he envisioned.

“It’s different,” he said. “Obviously, you don’t know what’s going to happen from day to day. This career path we all chose in the NBA, you just don’t know what’s going to happen with it. For me, I’m OK and I’m content with what I’ve done for 13 years. Did I think it was gonna shake out this way? No. But I’m not sitting here crying about it neither. I understand that’s how things go.

“I made the decisions so it’s fine. I look back on my 13 years and said, ‘man, we did some special, special things.’ It’s an amazing chapter in my life and a big part of what I’ve become and who I am. I don’t look back at nothing but the good times. I don’t look back at the bad ones.”

Wade said he’s comfortable finishing his career going year-to-year.

“That’s the way I approach it even if I’m on a contract for two years, that’s how I approached it,” he said. “As me and Udonis (Haslem) both talked about for many years and I think we got it from Ray Allen about knowing that time is going to come for you. Don’t have a perceived notion that I’m retiring at this age, I’m retiring at this year. Play the game year after year see how you feel and see what you want to do the following year.”

Ray Allen and Mario Chalmers of the Miami Heat look on from the bench against the San Antonio Spurs during Game Three of the 2014 NBA Finals at American Airlines Arena. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

DETROIT – The real mystery is how the Heat even made it to the Finals in 2014. No, how did they manage to win 54 games and even qualify for the playoffs?

That season ended with Miami failing to win a third straight title, losing in the Finals in five games to a San Antonio team in the midst of one of the league’s longest running dynasties.

The season, as it would turn out, was the fourth and final year of the LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh era, one in which Miami reached the Finals each year.

Now, that team is back in the spotlight thanks to a couple of players unable to accept that Miami was flat out beaten by one of the greatest teams, and coaches, in the history of the sport.

Wade comparing that team to a bad marriage and Ray Allen whining about being overworked and required to make public appearances is nothing more than two stars looking for excuses for their, and their team’s, shortcomings. Wade made 43.8 percent of his field goal attempts in the Finals while Allen shot 41.5 percent.

Wade and Allen come off as deflecting responsibility. And now we are all waiting for the next excuse – especially from the one member of that group who never lets an opportunity for a passive aggressive tweet slip by.

So what’s next? The Heat not providing marriage counseling. Or perhaps they did not arrange for drivers to chauffer their players around town.

Whatever, this is a bad look.

First, let’s take Allen, who threw Pat Riley, Erik Spoelstra and the entire organization under the bus by essentially blaming them for not looking out for the best interests of their players. This after they paid him $6.3 million over two years to ride out his career as a 26-minutes-per-game 3-point shooter off the bench.

“We were still doing a million appearances, we still were having all the practices, and doing all the things that typically wear you down by the end of the year,” Allen said.

Players are required to make 12, one-hour appearances each season as part of the collective bargaining agreement. So Allen is complaining about something approved by the players association. For the Heat, the team’s Family Festival and Charitable Fund Gala count toward that number and if a player spends more than an hour at an event, the team will count it as multiple appearances.

One of those Galas, by the way, was held at Allen’s home. And yes, that night counted as one of Allen’s appearances. So Allen was allowed to check off one of his required appearances when he never left his home.

That’s a total of 12 hours a year to give back to the community that supports these players by spending their hard earned money on tickets and merchandise, money that has contributed to someone like Ray Allen earning $184 million during his 18-year career.

And if Allen felt worn down, perhaps he should have backed off his own meticulously planned workout regimen. Allen, who has admitted to being obsessive compulsive, was a maniacal worker who took care of his body like none other in the league, one reason for his longevity and going down as arguably the greatest pure shooter in NBA history. Part of that routine was arriving early every day, including games, and going through his own routine before practices and shootarounds.

But it was Spoelstra who wore him down.

“I don’t know if anybody has a perfect formula,” Spoelstra said, carefully choosing his words. “So we constantly tried to improve it and work on the schedule. Who knows looking back on it whether it was the right call or not. We didn’t end up winning a championship, but it was a terrific team. What an incredible run. Nothing should be taken away from that.”

Said Udonis Haslem, a team captain and the lone holdover from the Big Three era to today: “That’s Ray’s opinion.”

Wade offered his opinion when asked about the Cavaliers’ early season struggles. He believed the chemistry had eroded and compared that 2013-14 team to a “bad marriage” because the players “had been around each other four years in a row. Your jokes weren’t funny anymore to other guys. When you walked in, it wasn’t a big smile no more. Guys were just over you.”

Wade’s theory takes a big hit when you look at the opponent that season. The Spurs somehow managed to keep their marriage together for more than a decade. San Antonio’s Big Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili came together as a group in 2002, the year Ginobili was drafted and 12 years later they were winning a fourth title while playing in their fifth Finals.

Since when is four years the expiration date on an NBA marriage? Tell that to the Bulls or the Larry Bird Celtics or Riley’s Lakers who managed to win five titles in nine years.

Allen said players were required to do too many appearances and coach Erik Spoeltra scheduled too many practices.

“With a team as old as we were, and with as much basketball as we’d played, we were still doing a million appearances, we still were having all the practices, and doing all the things that typically wear you down by the end of the year,” Allen said. “Just being on your feet so much. The team didn’t learn how to manage our bodies better.

“When your players have played in June the last three or four years, by this time you have to figure out how get people off their feet. We don’t need to have a practice. We don’t need to have a shootaround. We just have to be mental. From those aspects, you wear yourself down long term.”

Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Ray Allen and LeBron James of the Miami Heat look on from the bench in the closing minutes against the San Antonio Spurs during Game Five of the 2014 NBA Finals in San Antonio, (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Spoelstra took the high road when asked about Allen’s comments Thursday following practice as the Heat prepared for Friday’s game in Utah. He started by saying, “I love Ray,” before adding, “if we didn’t win three in a row, I think we should be open to criticism. It’s tough, it’s tough to win in this league multiple years, going four years in a row. I tip my hat off to teams that have been able to win three in a row. But I love Ray.”

Spoelstra also joked that recently, while walking his dog, he saw Allen, who was driving, and that Allen did not run him down so it can’t be all that bad.

“I was walking my dog across an intersection in Coconut Grove,” Spoelstra said. “He didn’t run me over. He had an opportunity to. I appreciated that. We actually stopped traffic. We chatted for a whole in the intersection. He looks great. … I will forever be grateful to Ray.”

Allen played his final two seasons with the Heat, joining Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh after they had won one title and been to two Finals. The Heat advanced to the Finals for the fourth straight season in 2014 before being dominated by San Antonio in five games.

“It certainly was tough on all of us as players,” Allen said. “Organizationally, I don’t think they ever adjusted. Most of the guys, having gone to so many Finals, me being an older player, having played a lot of basketball the last five, six years, organizationally and coaching wise they didn’t adjust.

“We had the oldest team in the NBA, and on top of that, we had such a bad schedule. Every holiday we were away from home. Every situation we were in we were fighting to just stay above board, trying to figure out how to sleep or rest our bodies. We wore down, we were tired, and we were definitely tired at the end. We still were good, and we still made it to the Finals.”

Recently, Wade was comparing what the Heat went through that season to what Cleveland is experiencing this year with Wade and James reuniting in September when Wade signed with the Cavs after agreeing to a buyout with the Bulls.

“As a team we were kind of like this,” Wade told reporters in Cleveland. “It was worse because it wasn’t new guys. It was guys who had been around each other four years in a row. Your jokes weren’t funny anymore to other guys. When you walked in, it wasn’t a big smile no more. Guys were just over you.

“It’s like being in a bad marriage. But we somehow made it to the Finals.”

Allen played a huge role in the Heat’s 2013 title. With Miami trailing San Antonio in the Finals, 3-2, Allen hit a 3-pointer in the final seconds of Game 6, sending the game into overtime. Miami won that game then captured its second title of the Big Three era in Game 7.

Allen was asked about that shot.

“People always ask me if I remember it. I’m like, “Uh, which shot are you speaking of? I don’t know which one you’re talking about,’” he said. “Do I remember it? Somebody did this huge picture and I have it on the wall in my house. It’s boarded all over the wall. We actually forget that it’s there half the time.

“For me it’s not about the shot as much as the preparation. That lifelong preparation that went into me being in that situation. I think it’s the Game 6 shot more than anything that people ask me about. They always tell me where they were when it happened. It’s pretty interesting, as much as I hit the shot, it’s more about where people were and how it affected their life more than anything else.”

A picture of that shot covers a large portion of one wall outside the Heat locker room, a floor-to-ceiling reminder of the most famous basket in Heat history.

“I walk by his picture every day and tap it, of just an acknowledgment of how special that time was and how it’s one of the iconic, all-time iconic shots in NBA history,” Spoelstra said.

With the Heat just days away from the start of their 30th NBA season, now is a good time to take a closer look at the players who helped make this organization what it is today. Whether it’s based off of pure talent, off-the-court impact or just longevity, there are a lot of names that helped the Heat over their first 29 seasons of existence.

Ray Allen #34 of the Miami Heat makes a game-tying three-pointer over Tony Parker #9 of the San Antonio Spurs in the fourth quarter during Game Six of the 2013 NBA Finals at AmericanAirlines Arena on June 18, 2013 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

The Miami Heat will celebrate their 30th season in the NBA this year. Miami entered the league in 1988, and after few rough years, it has been one of the more successful franchises in the NBA, as one of just five teams to win at least three titles over the last 30 years.

In celebration of the Heat’s first three decades we bring you 30 memorable moments in team history:

MIAMI — A day after Ray Allen declined to speak about his former Celtics teammates, Udonis Haslem didn’t hold back on the topic Friday.

During a TNT television segment on Monday, Allen’s former Celtics teammates Kevin Garnett, Kendrick Perkins, Paul Pierce and Glen Davis spoke about their hurt feelings and non-existent relationship with Allen stemming from his 2012 departure to the Heat.

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About the Author

Anthony Chiang began his writing career in Gainesville at the University of Florida’s student-run newspaper. At The Independent Florida Alligator, he covered the school’s golf, volleyball, baseball, and football teams. The Miami native has also written for the Sun Sentinel and MLB.com, following the Tampa Bay Rays.

Tom is a Heat beat writer for the Palm Beach Post. He has covered sports in Florida since 1981.